Page 2233 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 23 June 2010
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non-government organisations in isolation from the wider policy developments that are at stake here.
The new education agreement and the national partnerships gave the ACT government and the Canberra community a new opportunity. We had the chance to set our own priorities for how we make the best use of additional funding to ensure that we can complement services already provided by the public sector, like those in schools, with services provided by the non-government sector.
Confronted with this opportunity, our decision was to listen. The government has undertaken comprehensive consultation in the ACT to determine the priorities for the provision of services for children and young people with disabilities and their families.
As members of the Assembly would be aware, the government commissioned the review of special education in ACT schools. The review, known as the Shaddock review, undertook extensive consultation with schools, parents and the broader community to determine the needs of students in ACT schools.
In 2009 the government released a strategy to support people with a disability, Future directions: towards challenge 2014. And this was off the back of further extensive consultation with the disability community, including service providers.
These two documents, based on the most comprehensive consultation with the broader community and specifically with the disability community in the ACT, including service providers, provided clear directions for how this government needs to provide for children and young people with a disability in Canberra.
As a result of these extensive consultations and expert evidence into disability education, the Department of Education and Training have identified three priorities for partnering with non-government centre organisations to support children and young people with a disability in our community.
These three priorities are structured work experience and social placement opportunities for students in years 9 and 10; and therapies in support of individual learning plan goals that are not currently provided by the ACT departments of education and training or disability, housing and community services. Individual learning plans are developed for all children from diagnosis to the end of schooling who access ACT Department of Education and Training disability education services. This includes children under the age of four. These services will be designed to build capacity in schools and systematically improve community agencies that assist with curriculum goals. The third priority is sexual health education for young people with a disability. This is an area identified of specific expertise and knowledge that is not currently available in schools.
The government listened to the community and identified these priorities. Now we have an obligation to deliver—and that is what we are doing. To deliver on the community’s priorities—helping students in years 9 and 10 get ready for work and life, supporting individual learning plans and teaching about sexual health—the Department of Education and Training is asking non-government service providers to tender for therapy.
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